Research Experience For Teachers(RET) Participants are invited to post lessons, resources, and share their experiences.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Week 6

Week 6

This week was very enjoyable. The making of my research poster was an interesting exercise. Since I wasn’t permitted to show, or even discuss, our actual data, I decided to make more of a “teaching poster” than a “research poster”. Of course I did report the actual type of work we did, but I dedicated much more board space to background information on wastewater treatment to prevent eutrophication of waterways, general techniques to remove phosphates from wastewater, and a section on “how the Raman effect works”. I wrote these sections in less technical language so that the students at Middlesex Community College may understand the content. I found this to be a little more challenging, and fun, than putting together a straight-forward research poster. I feel that I have an artifact that I can much more easily use to promote RET to colleagues at Middlesex, and REU to students in the future, than a more technical poster would allow. And I do plan on promoting both programs with great enthusiasm.

I also really enjoyed hearing the lesson plans from the group. Not only was I grateful for the feedback to my work, but I took away a number of good ideas that I can use to help teach chemistry (in the areas of solution conductivity, scale of subatomic particle size, and intermolecular forces in particular – I must buy one of those water molecule magnet kits!)